My First Show (我的第一個舞台) presents 44 Taiwanese artists’ first novel, comic book, choreography, animation, painting or other work. The artists, who range from new college graduates to retirees, each won a government grant between NT$30,000 and NT$200,000 to produce and promote their first work under the 2013 My First Show initiative. The program is accepting applications for its next edition starting April 1. For more information, visit newartist.moc.gov.tw.
■ Huashan 1914 Creative Park (華山1914文創園區), 2F, Center Four Hall, Bade Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市八德路一段1號 中四館2樓), tel:(02) 2358-1914. Open daily from 10am to 6pm
■ Until March 20
Photo courtesy of National Museum of History
Tomorrow Comes Today (後福島的今天與我們的明天) brings together three digital works about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster of March 11, 2011. In two videos, Hikaru Fujii and art collective Chim↑Pom document a mix of non-governmental projects in the hardest-hit areas, showing how residents used art to cope with disaster and to respond, sometimes subversively, to government reconstruction. Kosuke Ikeda uses a multimedia installation to address the question of energy generation that has plagued Japan in the aftermath of Fukushima. Ikeda has created a power farm, featuring an old bicycle and other found materials that he converted to alternative energy generators. It’s a stage, too: Musicians walk inside and use the generators to power their own instruments and to light up the space. The weak, flickering bulbs and the electric guitar that crackles during the performance act as reminders of how challenging it is to generate stable power, as well how many bigger and much more dangerous generators go behind every brightly lit lightbulb.
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMOFA, 國立臺灣美術館), 2, Wuquan W Rd Sec 1, Greater Taichung (台中市西區五權西路一段2號) tel: (04) 2372-3552. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm
■ Until May 25
Photo courtesy of NTMOFA
View — Point (觀‧點) is a retrospective exhibition on Li Yuan-chia (李元佳, 1929-1994), a pioneer of Taiwanese abstract art who spent the prime of his career overseas and remains relatively unknown at home. Li worked in a range of media including ink and oil paintings, and had developed a system of symbols to sum up local phenomena. This system included single characters and poetry and prioritized the “cosmic point,” a point sometimes as small as a pencil dot that’s used on the canvas to stimulate a void on the visual field. Though educated in Taiwan and active in its influential Ton Fan Art Group (東方畫會), Li made his name mostly in Europe, where he lived for the last 28 years of his life and formed LYC, a free-form art community. This exhibition begins with his early works and breaks down presentation of his philosophy and artistic techniques by location: Taipei, Bologna, London and Cumberia.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (台北市立美術館), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段181號), tel: (02) 2595-7656. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm, until 8:30pm on Saturdays. General admission: NT$30
■ Until June 8
Forest Project (木林森) showcases sketches and paintings by Chinese artist Xu Bin and children from the Sandimen Township (三地門鄉), Pingtung County, which was devastated by Typhoon Morakot in 2009. As part of his international Forest Project, Xu opened an on-site course at the village last year to teach 6 to 12 year olds to paint trees. Later, he uploaded online course materials for local teachers to use with their students, who have submitted over 1,400 paintings to the project so far. After the show, selected works will go up for auction, with proceeds headed to Sandimen Township for tree restoration.
■ National Museum of History, 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號), tel: (02) 2361-0270. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. General admission: NT$30
■ Until May 4
Resetting the Perception (覺知的重置) is a solo exhibition featuring new works by Chinese artist Pang Maokun (龐茂琨), an oil painter and president of the Chongqing Painting Academy in China. Pang’s works are distinctly realist, featuring Chinese men and women, animals and objects that could belong in a photograph, yet are composed in unlikely combinations. In his Coincidence series, he brings together two male wrestlers locked in a bout, their bodies curved like the back of a husky locked in a cage, in a synchrony of detail that remarks on the peculiar condition of modern human civilization.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號), tel: (02) 28938180. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ Until May 4
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not